I’ll Have Another has a tall one in front of him, a tall order that is, to come to Belmont and win the Triple Crown.

As we have been told ad nauseum since I’ll Have Another won the Preakness last Saturday, only 11 horses, dating back to 1919, have ever won the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont. No horse has done it since Affirmed in 1978. Since then, 11 horses have come to Belmont having won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness and gone on to the Belmont. All have walked back the barn losers.

The hype suggests that I’ll Have Another has everything it takes to sweep this series and make history at Belmont Park on June 9. His racing style suits the mile and a half distance; his pedigree has stamina on both sides; he won the Derby and the Preakness impressively and on his own merits.

Still…history is against him.

Racing in 1919 is not the same as racing in the 1930’s and 40’s (when there were seven Triple Crown winners) which is not the same as racing in the 1970’s (another three) which is not the same as racing in 2012. Comparisons are inexact at best. But if I’ll Have Another wins the Belmont, he’ll buck nearly a century’s history.

All 11 Triple Crown winners raced at Belmont before running in the Belmont Stakes. This is not coincidental. Belmont Park has the only mile and a half track in the country, and racing on it is unlike racing anywhere else. Hit the far turn on most tracks, and you’ve got three furlongs (3/8 of a mile) left. Hit the far turn at Belmont, and you’ve got about a half mile. Jockey and equine instinct about where they are on the track is utterly unreliable, and many a Triple Crown bid has been lost long before the horses hit the stretch because jockeys have moved too soon.

I’ll Have Another went straight from Pimlico to Belmont, and yesterday he went to the track for the first time. He’s expected to gallop but not work out over the track, and his jockey Mario Gutierrez will join him the week before the big race, to race over it and get to know it. Will that be enough for both of them? Will they know the track well enough to navigate it successfully?

If I’ll Have Another completes the triple, he’ll be among the most lightly raced Triple Crown winners in history, having raced only seven times before the Belmont. Only two Triple Crown winners – Sir Barton in 1919 and Seattle Slew in 1977 – will have made fewer starts, each with six. Seattle Slew is often called “the best horse to ever look through a bridle.” Is I’ll Have Another in his league?

Winning the Belmont isn’t supposed to be easy. It’s not called the Test of the Champion for nothing, and the 2011 Belmont ad campaign played up its difficulty with its slogan, “It’s Farther, It’s Tougher…It’s Supposed To Be.”

Nick Godfrey, the international editor of England’s Racing Post, has covered the Belmont three times when the Triple Crown is on the line. “It shouldn’t be a ‘gimme,’” he said recently. “It should be the test of a champion. It needs to be difficult. Winning the Triple Crown shouldn’t happen all the time.”

And it doesn’t.

Four years ago, Big Brown came to the Belmont with the Triple Crown on the line. He had been wildly impressive before the Belmont, winning all five of his races, crushing his opponents seemingly effortlessly. In the days before the race, I asked a long-time racing fan if he thought this year would be the one. Would Big Brown win the Triple Crown?